Bernard Schoenburg: Expect a little more eloquence on Thursday

Sunday

Aug 24, 2008 at 12:01 AMAug 24, 2008 at 3:49 PM

In Saturday’s historic appearance of the team of U.S. Sens. BARACK OBAMA and JOE BIDEN at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., Biden actually talked a bit longer — about 17 minutes to about 16 for Obama — by my calculation.

Bernard Schoenburg

In Saturday’s historic appearance of the team of U.S. Sens. BARACK OBAMA and JOE BIDEN at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., Biden actually talked a bit longer — about 17 minutes to about 16 for Obama — by my calculation.

And while Obama did touch on vision things, like this being a “defining moment in our history,” he mostly explained why he chose Biden as his running mate and what would make Biden someone tested and ready to be president if needed.

My guess is that Obama and his advisers wanted to highlight Biden and didn’t want to overplay their rhetorical hand just five days before Obama delivers his presidential nomination acceptance speech in a stadium in Denver, at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention. So the thousands who streamed into Springfield got a taste of the Obama flair and a look at history as Obama and Biden shared the stage for the first time as a team. But unless folks attending Saturday are headed to Denver to see the convention in person, my guess is they’ll witness a bit more eloquence on TV Thursday — if they tune in.

It’s hard getting every public utterance analyzed, but people probably noticed that Obama mistakenly introduced Biden as “the next president” before correcting himself, and Biden — by mistake or not — referred to Obama as “Barack Ameri(ca).” Obama also said Biden was “a working class kid from Scranton and Washington,” but the prepared text said “Scranton and Wilmington.”

Hey, nobody’s perfect.

Meanwhile, Springfield Mayor TIM DAVLIN did introductions for the program, and carried it off with class.

Bernard Schoenburg is political columnist for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached at 788-1540 or bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com.